Chapter 33

The Hub – January 29th, 2008

Owen frantically worked on the Rift Manipulator, attaching new cables, trying to bypass Mainframe and Tosh's safeties.

"It still won't work. There's a piece missing." Ianto stated resolutely.

"Bilis had it all along," Owen said, startling Ianto.

"You are going to trust something you found in possession of the people we believed to cause this?" Ianto asked incredulously. "And even so, we still don't have all the equation."

"Maybe the machine can work it out," Owen said, discounting Ianto's argument as he flipped the leaver to the Manipulator before Ianto could stop him.

"Owen!" Ianto yelled angrily as the Manipulator sputtered but didn't do anything. "Machines don't work like that, especially delicate and sensitive ones like the Manipulator."

Owen growled in frustration before running past Ianto into Jack's office and started to rummage through the desk.

"There must be something in the safe. The key fits; we need better instructions." Owen said frantically.

"You can't open the safe. You have no right." Ianto argued.

"I'm second in command. I have every fucking right." Owen spat angrily.

"You were suspended from that position until your psychiatrist clears you." Ianto retorted.

"Yeah, then who's in charge, you? Don't make me laugh. You're just the boss's rent boy, there to bend over whenever he asks. Even there, you're replaceable." Owen snapped.

"I have more seniority than you, Owen, even if you don't want to acknowledge it," Ianto replied, ignoring Owen calling him a whore. "The stuff in there is too dangerous for Archives."

"I'm not going to play with his toys, Ianto," Owen yelled back before turning and punching Ianto in the face.

Ianto fell to the ground hitting his head on the corner of the desk, knocking him out completely. Owen looked down at the fallen man dispassionately before going back to the desk. Owen found Jack's notebook and quickly flipped through the pages until he came to a list of names.

"Rhea Silver, the god of war's missis and a nine-digit number. Not so clever, Jack." Owen mumbled to himself as he rushed over to the safe.

Owen opened it quickly, and at the back, there was an odd alcove in the wall. That was the Secure Archive; it was alien tech that was beyond Owen. Owen wasn't sure what he was looking for, so he started randomly removing box after box. After pulling out several wrong boxes, a file folder appeared. Owen tore it open and grinned with glee.

"Blueprints for the rift machine," Owen said before stepping over Ianto's downed body and peripherally noticing that there was a pool of blood forming from gash to Ianto's head.

Owen dashed around the Hub, now able to bypass the safeties with the blueprints. Owen had a manic smile on his face as he made his way over to the Rift Manipulator, only needing to turn the key, and we would have back Diane.

"Put the key down, Owen," Ianto ordered from behind him.

Owen turned around to see Ianto covered in blood, one eye swelled closed, holding a gun on him.

"Or I'll shoot." Ianto gave an ultimatum. "You have to let Diane go. Like I did with Lisa."

"Don't compare yourself to me. You found your soulmates, but Diane's all I have left." Owen admitted.

"It will get better, Owen. This isn't you; something or someone is manipulating you, all of us." Ianto reasoned.

"The only thing that will make anything better is that rift giving me back my love," Owen said, determined. "So, if I die trying to beat it, then it will all be in the line of duty."

Owen reached into the machine with a crazed look to place the key, and Ianto shot, hitting Owen in his left shoulder. However, with fevered determination, Owen pushed through the pain and managed to place the key, activating the Rift before he collapsed.

"You don't know what you've done." Ianto declared as he grabbed onto the railing to keep upright as the Hub was shaken with tremors as the Rift opened.

The Ritz Dance Hall - January 29th, 1941

Tosh and Harry were sitting at a table as the night wound down. Jack was still over with Captain Harkness, but there was a tension between them that seemed to have built all night. Suddenly Harry watched in horror as the tension between the two men broke as they began to dance a slow dance in front of everyone. Harry couldn't turn away as she watched the train wreck happening in front of her, as the two men kissed.

"I'm so sorry, Harry," Tosh said as she gave Harry a look of pity.

Harry could only storm up the pair and pull them apart before slapping Jack.

"I can't believe you." Harry screeched before grabbing Jack's arm pulling him towards the back storage room, Tosh following.

Harry pushed Jack into the room.

"Tosh, lock the door." Ordered Harry.

Tosh was quick to comply like a scared rabbit in the face of Harry's anger. Harry unsealed one of her CAD pistols and held it to Jack's face.

"Who are you, and what have you done with Jack," Harry questioned.

The imposter held up his hand. "Harry, calm down. There is no need for weapons."

Harry cocked the pistol. "Where is Jack?" Harry ordered tightly.

"Harry put the gun down," Tosh said softly from behind, trying to defuse the situation.

Harry hated that both were speaking like there was something wrong with her and not the both of them. Jack was an imposter, but Tosh couldn't seem to acknowledge or notice that Jack was not himself.

"Harry, it's me. I think there might be something wrong with you. Let me help." The doppelgänger reasoned.

"No, there is nothing wrong with me, but there is something wrong with you even if Tosh is unable to acknowledge it," Harry said calmly. "Now, for the last time, where is the real Jack."

"I am the real Jack." The thing wearing Jack's face said.

Harry shot him point-blank in the face, the green light killing it instantly. Tosh screamed in horror as she rushed to the body on the floor.

"You killed Jack! You killed your soulmate!" Tosh cried as she looked at Harry in horrified terror.

"No, I didn't look again," Harry said calmly.

Tosh looked back at Jack's body only to find that it was collapsing in on itself until it was an amorphous glob of white goo. Tosh crab crawled backwards away from it until she hit the wall.

"Oh my god, what is that," Tosh asked, both disgusted and horrified.

"I don't know," Harry stated as she pulled a vial from her purse to take a sample.

"How did you know?" Tosh asked in shock.

"Jack hasn't been responding telepathically since we spilt up after meeting Captain Harkness, and his emotions have also been flat. There were many little things, but that dance and kiss convinced me that it wasn't him. Jack lived this time, and he knows that being gay is still illegal. Jack would never out someone, especially a soldier, in front of his comrades. That thing practically signed Captain Harkness's death warrant." Harry explained as she vanished the goo on the floor.

Harry pulled Tosh to her feet.

"You have 30 seconds to pull yourself together. We still have to find Jack." Harry ordered.

Harry waited as Tosh scrubbed her face clean of the tears. Harry pulled out her crystal wand as she waited.

'Dux' Harry cast, and a small ball of light sprung up in front for her and began to move towards the locked door.

"Follow me," Harry ordered as she followed the light towards Bilis's office. Tosh followed behind obediently.

They entered the office only for the light to sink into the floor. Harry pulled back the carpet to find a trap door and threw open the hatch. There was a ladder leading down into the darkness.

'Lumos' Harry cast, illuminating the stone walls. The space must have been a part of the basement before it was walled off.

Harry handed Tosh her pistol.

"Keep watch," Harry ordered before she climbed down into the hidden room.

It was a small space, and she quickly found Jack strapped to a metal gurney. There were several leads attached to his head and an IV in his arm. Jack's eyes were half opened, and he looked completely out of it. She saw a vat of the same white goo that the imposter had composed of, almost empty. It looked like someone was boiling snot, and the smell nearly made Harry gag.

"Jack, can you hear me?" Harry asked, concerned, as she turned her attention to her soulmate.

There was no response. Harry unhooked the IVs, took samples of the drugs pumped into Jack, and then unstrapped Jack from the gurney, but he was in no shape to walk. Harry threw him over her, shouldering in a fireman carry. She thanked Death that her new body was significantly more potent than her human one because she would not have been able to climb with Jack, who was bigger and heavier than herself.

"Tosh, help me pull him out," Harry said as she got to the top of the ladder.

The two women worked together to pull Jack up and out of the hidden room. Each woman took an arm as they half-dragged Jack out of the office and towards the front door. It wasn't a moment too soon because there was a flash of light as the Rift opened.

The Ritz Dance Hall - January 29th, 2008

"Oh my god, Jack! He is okay." Gwen cried as they walked out of the Ritz in the proper time.

"We don't know; he was giving something," Harry said as she and Tosh worked to get him into the back of the SUV.

Harry drove them back to the Hub, with Gwen following in her car. Harry turned on the sirens, and they sped through traffic, by they lost Gwen along the way. The SUV was greeted in the parking garage by a frazzled and battered Ianto. Harry exited the SUV alarm.

"What happened, Ianto," Harry asked, looking over the bloody Ianto. His left eye was black and swollen shut, and a slow leaking gash on his right temple seemed to be the source of the blood.

"Owen," Ianto answered succinctly. "He got the worse end of the stick. I shot him. Don't worry. He is still alive; I only shot him in the shoulder."

Harry's eyebrows shot up in surprise, but questions would have to wait until later. Tosh had gone in to get the gurney.

"Is Owen at least able to talk?" Harry asked as Tosh came back with the gurney, and the women moved Jack onto it.

"Yeah, he is just finishing patching himself up," Ianto asked as they wheeled Jack into the med bay area.

Owen was waiting for them in the med bay, his shirt off and jeans bloody. He had just finished patching himself up when they had arrived, he was lucky that it was a through and through, and it hadn't nicked anything. Owen checked over Jack's vitals as well as he could with only one hand.

"What happened?" Owen asked, in full doctor mode. "Tosh, you'll need to draw blood and run it."

"Okay." Tosh agreed and ran over to the cabinet to get a needle.

"He was subdued somehow and replaced by something. We aren't sure what it was, but I took a sample after I dealt with it. We found Jack being held in a secret room in the managers' office, he was strapped to a gurney and had several IVs, and we haven't been able to rouse him." Harry explained as she helped Owen take Jack's vitals.

"Seems vitals seem stable. Grab the scanner and use the setting with a green square and the wavy lines." Owen ordered.

Tosh took the blood sample that she had drawn and took it up towards the lab. Harry then grabbed the scanner and did what Owen asked. As she did a full-body scan of Jack appeared on the large monitor in the medbay. Owen looked over it with a careful eye.

"Doesn't appear to have any injuries," Owen said before turning to leave. "I'll go see what Tosh's got. Yell if anything changes."

Harry turned her attention to Ianto, standing off in the corner, out of the way.

"Now, let's get you fixed up," Harry said as she made her way over to Ianto. "How did you get that cut?"

Ianto winced as Harry cleaned the wound. "Owen punched me, and I banged my head off Jack's desk. Lost consciousness."

Harry pulled out clear quartz and ran in over the wound while pushing healing magic into it. The cut slowly closed until there wasn't even a scar. Harry pulled out a vial of healing potion to help heal the black eye and anything below the surface. Ianto made a face at the vial but took it anyway and knocked it back.

"How bad was it?" Harry asked.

"Owen completely lost it. He opened the Rift without the complete equation. He has a reckless disregard for everything; the only thing that he cares about is Diane." Ianto said after shuttering at the taste of the potion.

"The UNIT psychologist did warn us that while Owen was no longer suicidal, he was still preoccupied with Diane," Harry said as the pair moved over to Jack's side.

"It goes well beyond that. Owen is completely obsessed with getting Diane back. So much so that he didn't care that Bilis was manipulating us to open the Rift." Ianto explained.

Harry shot him a look, surprised.

"That who we think is behind this?" Harry asked.

"Yeah. From the photos, Bilis was most like the same man that you encountered in the past. He either had a way to travel through the Rift, or he is immortal." Ianto said.

"That is not good." Harry succinctly said.

"Nope." Ianto agreed.

They were interrupted when Gwen rushed in and threw herself at Jack's unconscious body. Harry intercepted her, almost causing both to fall.

"What the hell, Gwen?" Harry said incredulously.

"Is he going to be alright?" Gwen asked, almost in tears.

"He should be fine in a couple of hours," Owen said as he walked in, Tosh meekly following behind.

Harry let go of the hysterical Gwen when she was sure Gwen wouldn't try to throw herself at Jack physically. Harry didn't know if Gwen was just stupid or if she was in denial about the relationship of the triad. They weren't exactly hiding it, but they preferred to be professional at work.

"He was injected with a sedative, as well as compound B58. It was developed by One as a precursor to Retcon but was considered a failure. While under its effects, the subject is in a dream state and easily suggestible, but there is no memory loss. They remember everything once they come out of the stupor. It also causes liver damage, but I'm sure that you can fix it." Owen said flippantly.

"So he'll recover?" Gwen asked hopefully, turning her watery eyes to Owen.

Owen rolled his eyes at her antics before walking out of the room.

"He just needs to sleep it off," Tosh answered for Owen.

"Tosh and Gwen, head home," Ianto ordered.

"I'll stay with Jack." Gwen protested.

Tosh slipped out of the room, eager to visit family and forget about the whole ordeal.

Harry nearly sighed in exasperation. "No, Gwen. Today was supposed to be your day off. We aren't paying you more over time so that you can just sit there."

Gwen shot her a dirty look as she tried to get closer to Jack but was stopped when Ianto stepped in front of her.

"I'm not going to put in for the overtime." Gwen retorted.

"This isn't your personal hang out. If you aren't working, then you shouldn't be here." Harry said firmly.

"But…" Gwen started.

"If you don't leave, I'll call Rhys to pick you up. I'm sure that he would love to be interrupted at work to hear that his girlfriend is refusing to leave the side of her injured boss, even while he is under supervision." Harry threatened with narrowed eyes.

"How dare you." Gwen puffed up.

Harry pulled out her phone. "If you are not gone in 5 minutes, I'm calling."

Gwen looked like she would put up a fight, but she suddenly backed down and stormed out of the medbay. Harry gave in to the urge to sigh as she pinched the bridge of her nose. Ianto looked just as frustrated at her.

"We need to do something about that. At this point, I think that Gwen is just being willfully blind." Ianto sighed.

"I would agree, but I think that there is more to it," Harry said, slumping into a chair near Jack's gurney.

Ianto gave her a questioning look.

"I think that there is something psychically influencing the team. It's very subtle, so much so that I can't find it. It just gets lost in all the thoughts and emotions that humans naturally throw out." Harry explained.

"That could explain why Owen is not making any progress in his recovery, and Gwen can't get a hint," Ianto theorized.

"Also, why Tosh wasn't able to see anything wrong with Jack's behaviour," Harry added. "I think with our bond; we are immune to it. That's why it had to go to the extreme of drugging and replacing Jack."

"That makes sense, and why Owen attacked me before I could stop him." Ianto agreed.

The conversation lulled, and they slipped into silence. Only minutes later, Jack started to rouse.

"Careful," Ianto warned as he helped Jack sit up.

"What's that last thing you remember?" Harry asked as she slipped in behind Jack to keep him sitting up.

Jack took in the room and realized that they were back at the Hub in their correct time.

"I was talking to the Captain at the bar, and we had a drink, but then I was handed a note. The note told me to go to the bathroom. The manager was there. I don't remember much after that, only flashes." While holding his head, Jack recalled feeling like he down the entire bar then got into a brawl.

"You were sedated and given compound B58," Harry explained.

"The Zombie drug?" Jack asked, confused.

"I didn't know it had a name, but yes. You were then taken to Bilis's, the manager's, hidden room, where you were strapped to a gurney and replaced with a clone of some sort." Harry explained.

"Clone?" Jack asked what had happened.

Harry pulled out a vial of white goo.

"It was made of this," Harry said, handing the vial to Jack.

Jack turned it over in his hand before uncapping it to smell it.

"It's called Flesh. It's a programable matter used to make clones in the 22nd century. Add someone's DNA, and a clone, known as a ganger, is created and controlled by the pilot remotely in a safe location. They stopped using it by the beginning of the 23rd century because it had started to gain sentience." Jack explained.

It was clear Bilis had used the B58 to control Jack as he piloted the Flesh.

"So Bilis is a time traveller, not just long-lived," Ianto concluded.

"Bilis is the one behind this. Do we have him in custody?" Jack asked.

"No, we haven't been able to locate him since Gwen last saw him at the dance hall. He is good at evading the CCVT." Ianto explained.

"How did we get back," Jack asked.

His lovers looked at each other, and Jack knew that he wasn't going to live the answer.

"I don't know how much you remember, but Tosh and I left behind the equations needed for them to bring us back through the Rift safely." Harry started.

"However, those equations were sabotaged, so they were incomplete. We believe that Bilis did it. Bilis also had the Manipulator key; we don't know how he acquired it, but Owen retrieved it." Ianto paused to swallow nervously. "Owen knocked me out, broke into the secure archives, stole the Manipulator blueprints, then activated it without the complete equation after I shot him in an attempt to stop him." Ianto summarised.

"We made it back safely, but…." Harry started.

"The fallout hasn't happened yet." Jack finished, holding his head in his hands.

Messing with the Rift was right at the top of the list of things not to do. Jack wasn't even sure how it worked, but even he knew better than to mess with a literal tear in the fabric of space-time. The fallout was going to be terrible.

"We think that this was Bilis's goal, and has been working on it for months, many even years," Harry said.

"Harry believes that our Bond stops him from influencing us, but he is still able to influence the others," Ianto added.

"That makes sense why he replaced me with a ganger." Jack worked out. "He couldn't influence me anymore."

"I think that Tosh is partly protected, but not fully. She isn't exhibiting the emotional extremes that the other two are, but she will still ignore things that would normally be a red flag." Harry theorized.

"So we are working with two emotions disturbed colleagues and one what will ignore important details." Jack groaned in frustration.

"Essentially, yes. We can't even call in the backup because they would fall under the same influence. The only advantage is that we know our team and will be able to spot anything out of the ordinary." Harry said.

Jack rubbed his temples, trying to soothe his headache as well as his foggy memories.

"Did I out someone in the middle of the Ritz?" Jack asked as memory returned to him.

"The ganger did under Bilis's control. You danced with Captain Harkness and then kissed him in front of the entire hall." Harry confirmed.

"Captain Harkness?" Ianto asked in confusion.

"We met Captain Jack Harkness, the man whose identity that Jack assumed when he arrived in that time period," Harry explained.

"I chose him because I thought that his actions were brave, he died saving his men, but it was his suicide. He charged into battle with no regard for his life because of what I did. He couldn't live with the shame, and his men must have covered it up." Jack whispered in horror.

"No, Jack, it was Bilis and the ganger that did that. He must have taken us to that time because the Captain was the perfect bait. It's a closed circle, Jack. There is nothing that you could have done to save him." Harry reassured but knew that Jack would take this onto himself.

"Harry is right; it's not your fault Jack. Bilis has been planning this for a very long time. He seems to know a lot about us, but he is almost no existent to us." Ianto agreed.

They lapsed into silence again, the days trial weighting on them. The silence broke when the phones started to ring.

"Sounds like the storm has started," Jack stated.